Albertson Fury ECNL u13 and u14 Boys and Girls both traveled to South Carolina this weekend to compete in the Greer National Showcase. For many this was the first taste of an ECNL National Event and it will be excellent experience as they progress into College Showcase age groups in the coming years

Fury Alum Carly Beyer is running the 2018 Marine Corps Marathon to raise money for The Grassroots Project, a nonprofit supporting NCAA D1 Athletes to empower young people in public schools to lead healthy lives

The Albertson Fury has added two more experienced and talented hands to their impressive stable of coaches -- Flavio Ferri and Tom Wharf.

Ferri, most recently the coach and general manager of the Long Island Rough Riders, was named the director of the Boys ECNL program.

“Flavio is a huge addition to our staff," Fury director of football Paul Riley said. "He is thorough, knowledgeable and has a great demeanor in his coaching style. We needed a committed, hungry professional and Flavio is excited to elevate our Boys ECNL program to one of the best on the East Coast. He understands the demands of a top program and he is a big proponent of the ECNL college platform. His tenacity and his belief in our culture of stellar effort over stellar results will bring him the love and respect of the players.”

Wharf, who was the Rough Riders youth director, was tapped to be director of Albertson's Junior ECNL program.

“Tom has a personality that players embrace and gravitate too. He has an excellent soccer brain and his energy for coaching is first class," Riley said. "He will be a massive addition to our Girls ECNL program and his ability to develop young talent will be an integral part of our player improvement program. He is an Evertonian, which is never easy for me to accept but his coaching style reflects that of their famous neighbors Liverpool FC. Great young coach with a zest for attacking football. “

Ferri will oversee the boys program and coach some of the younger teams.

He said he was "hitting the floor running and getting going right away."

"I'm looking forward to it," he added. "Timing is never perfect. I wish I had come in a bit earlier to sort of have more of an influence in terms of what happens this spring. The spring season is right around the corner."

Ferri, who performed with the Rough Riders and was a teammate of Riley in 1996-97, had been in several key administrative roles with the Premier Development League club since 2004. He guided the Rough Riders to a second-place finish in the Northeast Division with a 10-2-5 record while reaching the Eastern Conference final in 2017.

"It was great. I learned a lot," he said. "I basically had every role you could have within the organization at one point or another. Towards the end of my time there, I focused on the men's and women's programs, coaching the men's team and building up the camp program."

Born in Brazil, Ferri led the U.S. Interregional Soccer League in scoring with 29 goals during the 1995 season while playing with the San Antonio Pumas. He also performed for the Austin Lone Stars, Staten Island Vipers and New York Freedom.

Ferri explained his coaching philosophy.

"One, at any level, I want players to be passionate about the sport and enjoy their time on the field," he said. "A lot of times, there's talk about at the younger ages that it needs to be fun, which is very true. My philosophy it should be fun if you are a professional. You should be doing it because you love it, creating an atmosphere where players can thrive in that type of environment. Go out on the field and have fun.

"From a soccer standpoint, the two things that I would like to connect is possession with penetration. I think at time we get so caught up with possessing the ball that our first look is always square or back and we kind of play negatively. What I want to instill in the players is that we want to keep the ball, but always looking to get in behind other teams, always looking to penetrate. From that, hopefully generate opportunities, score more than the other team and we're doing all right."

A native of Southport, England, Wharf attended the University of Connecticut. coached at the Massapequa Soccer Club and also played with the Rough Riders.

"It's an environment here that I feel is quite rare," he said of Albertson. "In America, especially on Long Island, it is a pure soccer club. Coming from back home, it reminds me of where I was playing. I was playing in the academies back home. There is a pathway all the way up to the top. It's an opportunity to strictly coach. To put my focus on players and player development is something where I really want to be."

Joining a club that has enjoyed success on the field, Wharf knows something about winning himself. He is the center back of the Lansdowne Bhoys, the Cosmopolitan Soccer League team that captured two national amateur titles in 2017. Within a two-week span last August, Lansdowne secured the Fritz Marth U.S. Amateur Cup and the Werner Fricker Cup for a rare double.

"It was very special to be a part of it," he said. "It's something that doesn't happen very often. Lansdowne's great. They have look after me up there, managed to get some quality players in. Enjoying the playing, enjoying the environment. It just all worked and clicked. We managed to do what we hoped to do."

There are so many reasons why soccer players decide to attend a particular college. For some it is the closeness to home. For others it is the athletic and academic programs. And yet for other players it is the team and school environment itself. For Albertson Fury standouts Kayla Duvenhorst and Marissa Stanco, the colleges they selected to attend checked off many, if not all the boxes, on their respective lists. They were among 10 Fury players who announced their intentions on National Letter of Intent Day on Wednesday, Feb. 7.

Duvenhorst decided to attend Farmingdale State University, which is about five miles from her Levittown, N.Y. home.Ã‚

"It was the first serious college I was looking into and got the tour," she said. "I really liked it. I liked the distance from my house. I liked the coach and I liked the facilities. It was really nice."

It certainly did not hurt that Farmingdale has a top-flight nursing program, in which Duvenhorst plans to major.

"Athletically, I just want to grow as a player and enjoy my last four years of soccer," she said. "Academically, I just want to become stronger in nursing."

Fordham University is a longer trip for Stanco, but its proximity fit the Glen Cove, N.Y. resident just fine. It's about a 40-minute car ride to the Bronx college.

"It's so close to home," she said. "It's the best of both worlds."

In so many ways -- on and off the field.

"I knew it would challenge me athletically and academically," she said, adding that on her visit, "the girls made me feel like I was at home."

That was an important part of the mix as well.

Training with and playing for the Albertson Fury in some intense competition in the Elite Clubs National League helped prepare both players for college.

"The coaches, their training is unreal," Stanco said. "It's paying attention to every detail. It helps you not just on the field, but off the field as well. It's helped my character, tremendously."

The Albertson Fury's success and its ability to place many players into top-flight college programs was not lost on club director of coaching Paul Riley.

The club traditionally has participated in the highly competitive ECNL for many years, which has allowed Albertson players to showcase their talents to college coaches many times.

"It's an amazing college platform that they've created there," Riley said. "That's been a reason why we have been able to showcase our players and put them in a great competitive environment, in a college platform environment. A lot of leagues try to be the ECNL. They just never really created a platform that was good enough for the players, but ECNL created this platform."

All you need is one coach to believe in you, which can open the door to further opportunities.

"They get so much visibility, so many showcases, so many options in front of coaches," Riley said. "I say you have 24 job interviews, I say you can't fail 24 job interviews. You've got to pass one of them to get on a good school. All the college coaches follow the ECNL well."

It's not just showcasing your abilities. To play for the Albertson Fury in the ECNL, players must be committed and be ready to play and/or practice five times a week.

"We're looking for a pipeline to these college coaches," Riley said. "Our players who have graduated from the ECNL have gone on to become coaches, like Kelly Farrell. They are coaching in the college ranks."

Riley was referring to Farrell, who is an assistant women's soccer coach at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

"I think they understand what we do for the players and what the preparation is for the players, whether it scholastically or physically on the field," he added. "Time management is difficult for kids. In the ECNL we've done a good job that they're all at practice. It's five days a week and these kids got to manage their time."